Serving or ex-military personnel

I have a hearing on Friday for a judicial review into the Police Medical Appeals Board's refusal to allow early release of my pension due to permant disability.
What I need to know is if you were to become permantly disabled are you allowed to request early release of your servie pension and if the MOD reused is there an independant body you can appeal to and it's name.

Though I have no evidence for this, my feeling for the MoD system is that if you get your pension, or any part of it, early, and then die before you reach what would have been your pensionable age, they would have to claw the money back (because you had not actually qualified for it, and there is no way, legally, of writing it off).

I suspect that they would rather have the occasional adverse publicity of not paying out on disability to someone still living, than that of telling a grieving widow "Sorry, you owe the MoD several thousand pounds"!

Well the federation are to scared too back me so I'm in court on my own. The only good thing is the Governemnt must have known when they drew up the contract that a lot of these decisions could not be justified because they put a clause in the contract that the company could not defend their decisions. Should be interesting as I intend to ask the Judge for a subpoena for the Home Secretary and the civil servant who refused to supply documents under the FOI

I think you will find that by adding Independent to a body created by politicians it gives the impression that what this 'independent' body is actually 'independent' and has the power to do anything.

I had to use the Independent Case Examiner in a problem I had with the DWP who had decided that they were going to deduct a third of the benefit I was receiving whilst being treated for cancer for an alleged overpayment in 1999/2001. The I C E admitted to me right from the beginning that they had very little power and even if the found that the DWP had indeed made errors then there was very little they could do about it. I took 3 years for the I C E to come up with a lengthy report which was not worth the paper it was printed on, it was ambiguous in the extreme and worthless to me. It took me 4 years and persistence and many Freedom of Information requests to eventually overturn the DWP's decision. The DWP had got my name confused with another person and as DWP seem not to have to have the evidence to prove someone's guilt or if they have any they certainly do not have to keep it if and I quote " It does not make business sense to do so". Make of that what you will.

I was unfortunate and fortunate in that I have a choice of politicians to turn to for help. My MP I would liken to an ash tray on a motorbike but my Scottich MP was absolutely fantastic.

If you have tricky questions you need answering and you have not approached your MP then that avenue is certainly worth a try. It matters not what party they belong to as there are good and bad in all.

If they do not supply the documents you have requested or do not give a valid reason then you can request an internal review which I have done on occasion and can sometimes push them into responding to your request.

Chronos The 2nd
90% of appeals against ATOS decisions are won. Tribunal is run under the Administrative Court Office. My MP has been fighting the DOH about notifying every Dr in the Land that my conditon exists and got nowhere. Seems to hae given up. Internal Review is under way, due to have answer by 13th but in Court on 15th so told them if I don't have what I need by then I'll ask for the subpeonas.

Like many of this type of experience, it always seems easy on paper and theory, but when you become actually involved, then things can get very complicated in getting honest, true and simple to understand answers. As Chronos the 2nd as mentioned, there are some ways of trying to achieve things, and a good MP (with the contacts) can soon provide some answers, but its a case of finding the right MP or person.

I have mentioned this before on the forum, and seemed to have got a frosty response back, but I cannot understand why or how you cannot get access to your police pension, unless this is due to you not being a serving officer, and you have had alternative employment since.

I left the police force, under a medically unfit procedure, due to possible complications following a motor bike accident on the firms property, and I didn't want to end up full time with a desk job, even though I was offered and trailed this alternative. I attended medicals and the paperwork was passed on, and that was all there was to it. I retired on a police pension, plus later a old age pension on government retirement age. Other pensions also were and are available to me.

Doesn't matter if you are still serving or have left the job, the regs states you are entitled to early release of your Police Pension due to permanent disabiltiy. How long ago was yours, I think a lot of things changed when the governemnt did this new contract, 2008 I think.

It was before 2008, and before the 'new rules' came into being, and I wasn't classed or had 'permanent disability'. I was just unfit to do the job I was originally employed to do, a transfer to a desk job just wasn't on my agenda.

But I do know other people who could have left on a police pension under medical grounds, but they stayed on and were later moved to civilian post, with a change to pension procedures.